Volume Two: The General’s Tomb Chapter Forty-Nine: A Flight on the Run

A series of thunderous booms rolled in from all around us. The crash of falling stone never ceased, and a violent tremor shook the ceiling overhead. Dust filled the chamber at once, with earth and grit pouring down in an unending shower, mingled with countless tiny fragments of rock.

Li Kun and I hurriedly raised our flashlights and looked up. The stone roof above had suddenly split open with a vast web of cracks. In the blink of an eye, those hairline fissures spread across the entire tomb chamber, until the walls, floor, and ceiling were all covered in great rents.

At the sight, my heart lurched with alarm. I turned to Li Kun at my side and shouted, "Run, Old Li! The chamber is collapsing!"

No sooner had I spoken than Li Kun turned toward the huge coffin at the center of the room, as if he meant to sprint over to it.

When we opened the coffin earlier, we had set both backpacks beside it. Li Kun's pack, in particular, was filled with the many treasures we had taken from the ice coffin of the immortal female corpse.

But this main burial chamber was extraordinarily vast. The coffin lay some fifty meters from where we stood. If we ran back for the packs now, we might well be buried here instead.

Seeing this, I seized Li Kun and roared, "Old Li, are you choosing money over your life? If we don't run now, it will be too late!"

The words were still on my lips when a massive slab of stone came crashing down from above. I shoved Li Kun aside, and the slab, nearly a meter long, struck the ground with a deafening thud. The whole chamber shuddered violently, and crackling impacts rang out all around us.

Li Kun, still unwilling to give up, looked toward the coffin and said bitterly, "All the treasures from this tomb are in those packs. If we can't take them, haven't we come here for nothing?"

I shouted at him, "This isn't the only tomb we'll ever enter. There'll be other chances to make money. Don't you know that as long as the green hills remain, there will be no lack of firewood?"

As soon as I finished, another enormous slab plummeted directly above the coffin and smashed squarely into its center, shattering the whole thing apart.

At that, I bellowed, "If we don't go now, it's over!"

Hearing this, Li Kun gave the backpack one last look, then turned and ran straight for the stone door on the right.

As I had expected, the bronze door led to the other side chamber we had just passed through—the burial chamber of the boy and girl attendants.

Li Kun and I glanced back. The passage behind us was already shaking with a terrible rumble, the walls and overhead beams beginning to cave in, the corridor swallowed in a cloud of dust.

Yet the chamber we stood in showed no sign of collapse at all, as though it had been cut off from the world, forming a separate realm within the great tomb.

Though this chamber remained intact, the passage ahead was also riddled with cracks. If we did not want to be trapped and die here, we had to force our way out at once.

With that thought, Li Kun and I raced together down the passage ahead.

The walls of this corridor were already covered in huge fissures. We bent low, covering our mouths and noses with our hands, and ran for our lives. Beyond this point lay the armory; once we reached it, the exit would not be far.

Before long, we arrived at the armory. By then, the floor was a complete wreck, with not even a place to set one foot. Broken display racks lay smashed across the ground, and all around them were numerous rust-eaten weapons of every kind.

Li Kun cursed under his breath. "Damn it, these things are really slowing us down. And all those broken jars and bottles too—Old Liu, watch your step. Don't let those shards cut you, and be careful of the hidden traps."

I shouted back, "Enough talk. Move, now. If we delay any longer, it'll be too late!"

With that, Li Kun and I moved forward, stepping over one display rack after another as we hurried on.

But then Li Kun heard a sharp crack from overhead. At once, he became alert and quickly looked up.

Above him, a massive stone slab more than two meters long was tilting down. It was about to come crashing straight onto his head. If it landed squarely, it would flatten him beneath it.

Li Kun's throat tightened. He braced one hand against the rack in front of him and lunged forward with all his might.

At that exact moment, the slab could no longer hold. With a thunderous boom, it fell straight down.

When I heard the deafening crash, I whirled around. What I saw sent a cold sweat over me: Li Kun's arm had been pinned beneath the slab. My own heart jumped into my throat. This was bad. His arm might be ruined.

I leaped over at once, but when I looked closer, my tension eased. The slab had been caught by a display rack beside it, and beneath the rack sat a thick iron box. Li Kun's arm had only been trapped by the wooden frame. Fortunately, there was no real injury.

I jumped to Li Kun's side and asked, "Old Li, are you all right? Are you hurt?"

Li Kun shook his head and tugged hard at his arm under the slab. "I'm fine. But my longsword's trapped under there. I can't get it out."

Before I could react, I saw that the other half of the slab overhead was about to fall as well. I yanked Li Kun up with all my strength, and he too saw the slab coming down. He had no choice but to let go of the sword hilt. Then we threw ourselves forward in a desperate lunge.

A mighty crash erupted behind us. The place we had just occupied was now sealed tight beneath the enormous stone slab, and the display rack beneath it had been smashed to splinters.

Seeing that there was no chance of retrieving the sword, I grabbed Li Kun and said, "What are you looking at? Run. If we don't run now, it will be too late!"

As I said it, the dust around us made me cough violently.

Li Kun clenched his teeth and nodded hard. No matter how precious the things were, they were only worth taking out if we were still alive.

Behind us, dust now filled the air completely. Even the passage ahead was choked with thick gray haze. The beam of the flashlight could no longer pierce the darkness to reveal the path ahead; it could only outline the corridor itself.

I shone the light forward, my nerves stretched taut. Could it be that Li Kun and I were truly going to be buried here?

If we tried to turn back now, it would be utterly impossible. Before we could even reach the exit, this vast general's tomb would likely collapse completely. By then, Li Kun and I would surely be entombed alive.

Looking at the dense dust in the corridor, both Li Kun and I were filled with despair. Was there any way ahead that could still lead us to safety?

I gritted my teeth, covering my mouth and nose with one hand while sweeping the flashlight ahead with the other. Li Kun stayed close behind me, running forward with everything he had.

In such a suffocating place, time seemed to crawl unbearably slowly. Every step was agony. Thick dust choked the passage ahead, and from above, tiny stones continued to rain down. Those stones had struck my head countless times by then, but we could only endure the pain and keep running.

How long we ran, I did not know. Then, all at once, the space before us opened up.

The flashlight in Li Kun's hand had already gone dead. It seemed that after spending too long in the tomb, the battery had been drained dry, so he simply threw the flashlight into the corridor.

I turned to look at our position. Behind us was the passage we had just come from, and straight ahead lay the tunnel we had originally taken to get here.

But what filled Li Kun and me with despair was that the entrance to the passage ahead had already collapsed completely. It was piled high with enormous stones, and there was no chance at all of returning by the way we came.

Seeing this, Li Kun collapsed onto the ground. He looked up at me and said, "Old Liu, looks like the two of us really are going to die together this time, and buried alive at that. What a damn injustice."

Hearing him say that, my own heart felt heavy. But then I shone the flashlight to the right and saw another passage there. Remarkably, it showed no sign of collapse at all—only a few cracks along the walls.

A thought struck me. When we came in earlier, we had taken the passage behind us, and that way led to the main burial chamber. So where, then, did this other passage lead?

At that moment I noticed traces of blood on the ground, and immediately thought of the three-eyed snake man we had killed.

With that in mind, I hurriedly said to Li Kun, "Old Li, didn't you want to know how that three-eyed snake man managed to survive here until now? I think I have the answer."

Li Kun looked up at me and said, "Old Liu, and you’re still thinking about that now?"

I ignored him and went on, "If that snake man has survived to this day, he must have been hunting outside. Otherwise he'd have starved to death long ago. Besides, snakes eat meat. How else could it have lived all the way from the Song era until now?"

As soon as I finished, Li Kun suddenly looked up at me and asked, "You mean this passage leads to another exit outside?"